AGENDA The CSIS Middle East Program covers all aspects of U.S. policy toward the region, concentrating especially on identifying new voices, framing emerging challenges, and developing opportunities for positive change in the Middle East.
We seek to distinguish ourselves in three ways:
- To the greatest degree possible, we are “opportunity driven” rather than “threat driven.
- Our work concentrates on the drivers of change in a five- to ten-year time frame, rather than merely commenting on the day’s news.
- We use our deep familiarity with Middle Eastern societies and our facility with local languages to keep our ears especially “close to the ground,” sensitive to societal trends, popular culture, and other emerging phenomena with significant public policy impact.
Taken as a whole, our work is intended to:
Identify and understand the drivers of social and political change in the Middle East, concentrating on relatively poorly understood issues such as information and communications technologies, demographics, and the regional media.
Highlight the complexity and diversity of ideas, forces, and movements in the region, in order to strengthen and inform our understanding of the forces at work.
Create partnerships between academics and policy professionals in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East to frame and address questions in such a way as to promote the creation of new, constructive, and innovative solutions to problems.
Focus on activities that add value, follow from CSIS’s regional and functional strengths, build on its comparative advantages over other think tanks and government efforts, and extend CSIS’s core competencies.
As part of its work, the Middle East Program also pursues an active, “traditional” think tank agenda of concentrating on key states (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq) and key conflicts (Arab-Israeli, U.S.-Iranian), holding regular meetings and seminars, appearing on leading national and international news outlets, and publishing in both the academic and popular press.
Current ProjectsThe Changing Gulf
Sustained high oil prices have not only affected life in the oil-rich Gulf profoundly, they have also created soaring wealth that changes the way the region relates to the rest of the world. The Middle East Program will work with others at CSIS to appreciate the new challenges and opportunities arising from a resurgence of Middle Eastern oil wealth and their impact on regional affairs and global politics. Activities include a monthly Gulf Roundtable, larger conferences, and publications. Read more here.
North Africa
North Africa is a remarkable microcosm of the opportunities and challenges for U.S. policy in the Middle East, from forward-leaning, reforming nations like Morocco to former “rogues” like Libya and lingering authoritarian modernizers like Tunisia. Since September 11 the depth of U.S. engagement with the five states of the region (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania) has transformed dramatically, presenting new opportunities for the United States and the region. The Maghreb roundtable has brought attention to key emerging issues and created a community of interest in this vital region.
The program continues to organize roundtables and discussions to evaluate emerging trends and opportunities in a rapidly changing North African political and social environment.
Congressional Forum on Islam
The Middle East Program brings leading scholars of Islam from around the country to conduct policy discussions with Capitol Hill staff. The series is intended to highlight the debates underway within Islam and inform staff on emerging trends that bear watching. The series seeks to bring prominent speakers from around the country to enrich the ongoing Washington debates on these topics.
Upcoming Projects Muslim Networks
Increasingly, Muslim identity goes beyond the way in which people live their daily lives and extends to the way they view their neighbors, their governments, Muslims outside their countries, and the non-Muslim world. Whereas notions of transnational Muslim solidarity were abstract for centuries, the steady migration of people and ideas—due in part to the rise of electronic media—have made Muslims’ connection to an international Muslim community far more immediate. In an effort to understand better the forms of Muslim identity and how nonradical networks and identities shape the views of Muslims across the globe, the Middle East Program is seeking to enhance its work on this subject through further conferences and publications. Read more here.
Settler Mobilization in the West Bank
The Middle East Program is seeking to convene a working group of Israelis and Americans to examine the radicalization of Israeli settler youth in the West Bank. Militant settlers are growing increasingly alienated from Israeli society as well as their own communities. With some prepared to use violence to thwart a future Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories, this small minority has the power to disrupt a future political process between Israelis and Palestinians. CSIS intends to convene several conferences and commission working papers on a range of topics that aims to understand settler objectives, mobilization methods, their implications, and how best to treat the phenomenon they represent.
Recent ProjectsThe Vital Triangle: China, the United States, and the Middle East
The CSIS Middle East program studied the implications of China’s increasing role in the Middle East. As China becomes a global power and many Middle Eastern countries look for a counterweight to the United States, Chinese approaches to energy security, export markets and military ties have an important impact on global diplomacy. At the same time, the Chinese experience of economic growth without significant political liberalization remains an interesting, if not outright attractive, example for some Middle Eastern regimes. Through research in China, the Middle East, and the United States, the Middle East Program evaluated emerging trends and opportunities in China’s evolving relations with the Middle East. Read more here.
Understanding Islamic Charities
Philanthropy is a vital lens through which to examine dynamics in the Muslim world because it harnesses enormous material and human resources as well as organizational capacity. Many in the West view Muslim philanthropic enterprises with considerable skepticism because of accusations of material support for, or condoning of, acts of violence against civilians. Drawing on CSIS’s regional and functional expertise, Understanding Islamic Charities explores the varieties of roles that Muslim charities play in different countries, their interactions with national and international institutions, and the boundaries and connections between their philanthropic roles and their political impacts. Read more here.
The U.S., EU and Middle East Reform
From January 29 to February 3, 2006 CSIS led a group of twelve American and European experts on a five-day study tour to Morocco to examine the issue of reform in the Arab world. The group, composed of leading specialists on development, European Union policy toward the Mediterranean world, the sociology of the Arab world, Morocco and the Middle East more broadly, first sought to analyze the reform process that Morocco has recently undertaken. Secondly, the group evaluated the international community’s political and social development programs in Morocco, looking especially at potential cooperation and coordination between the United States, the EU and individual European countries. The project culminated with a monograph, Arab Reform and Foreign Aid: Lessons from Morocco, authored by Haim Malka and Jon B. Alterman. The full text can be found here.
Charting a New Policy Toward the Arab World
The program assembled a bipartisan Advisory Committee, chaired by former U.S. Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, in a year-long effort to reexamine U.S. policies and relationships in the Arab World. The committee produced a report recommending a range of initiatives, concentrating on strengthening bilateral relationships with regional governments and investing in the next generation of Arab leaders and citizens. The report built on focused discussions between the project leadership and Arabs in seven countries. It also reflected the findings of a specially commissioned Zogby International poll of public attitudes toward the United States in the Arab world. While the report acknowledged the importance of addressing the Arab-Israeli conflict and improving conditions in Iraq, it highlighted the extent to which securing U.S. interests in the Arab world will require an even more ambitious and broadly conceived agenda. The full text of the report is available online here.
Philanthropy in the Arab and Muslim Worlds
The Middle East Program held a series of seminars in cooperation with the CSIS Islam Program and the U.S. Agency for International Development to explore "The Idea of Philanthropy in the Arab and Muslim Worlds." The report from this activity is available on the Middle East Program's Web site: www.csis.org/mideast. |
